Grapes of Wrath continued

Well the book club did not put me off!  The comments by some were that they did not like the book because it was depressing.

On the other hand it showed the human generosity of spirit , sharing food when they themselves were starving, for example.  It starkly revealed the inability of uneducated to know how to face problems.  It illustrated stubborn  refusal to stick on " their land" when it wasn't their land, and if they could have stayed , they would have died of starvation

The suffering blamed the greedy for their plight but it was more than that , how many see this?  It was lack of knowledge about farming, inability to switch crops, lack of education, living day to day subsistence .  It was plain and simple an agrarian society that had no place to go ,nothing to do except migrate and follow the promise of a dream,just as our ancestors did thru history whether Stone Age or agrarian.  only the industrial revolution freed us from direct contact with the land and provided food for more people because we had the ability to do more with machines.

Interesting how some people see and feel only the negative and miss the learning situation, the loving, the giving in spite of suffering and loss. It's hard living but then we encounter this today and it requires problem solving as our leaders tried to do during the Great Depression with programs that produced actors , producers and writers of the 40's .

I happen to be reading at the same time the biography of Burt Lancaster and his family struggle at the same period of time in New York

new reading...The Grapes of wrath and thoughts on the start of it...

Reading for a book club and disappointed because the new edition I purchased is dissecting  the story, so
what happens when you begin to read.....  I remember the first college class when I learned about the stream of consciousness, and I was dumbfounded at what it could do for a story!  Reading Faulkner and learning about "stream"...was an awakening...

But, now...after the critiques....that came with the book,
You notice structure, you notice how characters are described, you note the scenes and you don't fall into the story.....

You note the rough language of the two men talking, and you begin to smell the summer dryness, and the burrs of the clover, and suddenly
..... I  found myself back in childhood in the meadows and pastures around 604 Hollis Street, Framingham , Mass., where my brother and I roamed the woods and fields with our cousins and friends..  I could smell the staleness of the shack in the woods, where the "bum" lived unkempt, no insulation, run down with an outhouse in the rear....sad...

So, although the dissection was throwing me off, I began to feel, smell and sense the location.

I wonder if the book club will kill the story for me....I loved the film and could watch it again, but when the discussion starts beating on someone, and trying to discern what side the author was on etc...I begin to lose the treasure...and Grapes.....was a treasure of a very difficult time in the lives of Americans.

Books\ should in my opinion tell a story....the idea here of the rise and fall of an orchestra as one person described is a good idea, but when a person is writing  pages and pages non stop, is he or she really thinking about the rise and fall of an orchestra, or point and counterpoint.......when people try to read their impressions into the story, and the skeleton is showing, I miss the meat....

Do you?

A HUNDRED YEARS FROM TODAY Jack Teagarden 1941 and Maxine

This song is one of the great jazz songs, but most vocalists including Frank, tried to make it too romantic...so listen to this then

listen to Maxime Sullivan.... click link below...



http://youtu.be/dsfLnY2cJlA

Shiny Stockings with Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie

there was a time when shiny stockings were the thing!

FAFARD RE MetroWest, Mass., Residential/ Commercial Real Estate: Three townhomes available Ashland Mass

FAFARD RE MetroWest, Mass., Residential/ Commercial Real Estate: Three townhomes available Ashland Mass

New read,,,,The Discovery of France, Graham Robb

The Discovery of France  by Graham Robb

A wonderful adventurous book, ride, walk, and just encounter the hinterlands of France and the adventure of becoming a country, united by a language.  It was not easy, nor was the unification of a country and it"s language.  All roads led to Paris, and thus the unification began.

I could not help but think of the parallels of the United States becoming a country of many States during the same period of time, as also  the unification of Italy.  It was a time when unification made sense, so people could be accounted for and the State could grow and be responsible .

Crossing the Alps was an adventure and although the Grand Tour was not mentioned it was easily alluded to in the crossing of the Alps.  The horses could not make some of the steep inclines, so a donkey was brought along .  The coach would be taken apart, and the donkey would haul it on a travois over the top of the incline, where it would be reassembled for the harrowing ride down the mountain.  Robert Louis Stevenson and others took the Grand Tour in this manner, across the Alps to Italy, and back.

Superstition and lack of communication led to the death of one of Cassini's map makers.  Spas grew up where people came to take the waters and fed by towns anxious for income more business grew up around the spas.  Gossip could travel faster than man, one wondered how that could happen?

 Today we think that everyone needs what civilization has to offer, but on is startled back to a one room cottage, with firepit, outside accommodations and uncleanliness.  This was life for many of us before the advent of industrialization

Finally, I learned about the start of the Tour de France and I learned why, when I was in Paris in the 1950's the French would seem rude when they barked at me, "Speak French!"  I did struggle to speak French, and wondered why they were so rude, after all I was only a "kid", struggling to make myself understood,( as though I could just spout out French)

 The railroads, the coach roads, the many people that walked from the outlying areas, all came together in the glittering city of Paris, uniting the languages, the cultures and the ideals, until, we had ...Vive La France!

 An interesting journey, worth the time for armchair travelers, that like to accumulate knowledge about the world and its people.